Former Chief Minister and chairman of the newly floated Democratic Progressive Azad Party (DPAP) is finding it difficult to keep his flock together as his "staunch" supporters are exploring possibilities to rejoin the Congress party.
DPAP on Monday expelled former Jammu and Kashmir legislator Haji Abdul Rashid from the primary membership of the party for alleged "anti-party" activities.
Rashid, who had won the assembly election in 2014 from the Sopore constituency of north Kashmir's Baramulla district on a Congress ticket, was among the founding members of the DPAP which was formed by former chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad in September last year after ending his five-decade-long association with the grand old party.
Azad, chairman of DPAP, ordered the expulsion of Rashid from the primary membership of the party for anti-party activities, DPAP general secretary R S Chib said in a three-line statement issued on Monday.
Ex-MLA was in touch with Congress
Haji Abdul Rashid was exploring the possibility to rejoin the Congress party as he was feeling isolated in the newly floated DPAP.
Sources said that Haji Abdul Rashid, who had won the 2014 assembly election on a Congress ticket from Sopore-the home town of separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, was not happy with ignoring mass base leaders in the party and projecting only "sycophants".
Sources said that during Ghulam Nabi Azad's rally at Bandipora district on Sunday, Haji Abdul Rashid was not present.
Earlier Azad expelled his close confidants from the party
In December 2022, Ghulam Nabi Azad received a big jolt when the party was forced to expel three prominent faces from Jammu province namely Tara Chand, Dr. Manohar Lal Sharma, and Thakur Balwan Singh from the party.
A three-time MLA Tara Chand, a former Deputy Chief Minister of the erstwhile state of J&K and a Dalit leader was a close and trusted confidant of Ghulam Nabi Azad. Dr. Manohar Lal Sharma is a former minister and two-time MLA from the Billawar assembly constituency of the Kathua district of Jammu and Kashmir.
Thakur Balwan Singh is also a prominent leader of Jammu province.
Trio was in touch with Congress leaders and lured other leaders of the DAP to rejoin the Congress party.
Seventeen loyalists of Azad already rejoined Congress
At least seventeen loyalists of Ghulam Nabi Azad, including two political stalwarts who were expelled from the DPAP had rejoined the Congress party. Former Deputy Chief Minister Tara Chand along with former J&K Congress chief Peerzada Mohammad Sayeed, ex-MLA Thakur Balwan Singh, and others had rejoined the Congress party just before entry of Bharat Jodo Yatra in J&K in January this year.
These leaders had resigned in support of former Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, who later floated his own party—the Democratic Azad Party, which has now been renamed as Democratic Progressive Azad Party.
Tara Chand, Peerzada Muhammad Sayeed, Balwan Singh, Muzaffar Paray, Advocate Mohinder Bhardwaj, Bhushan Dogra, Virodh Sharma, Narendra Sharma, Naresh Sharma, Amresh Mangotra, Subhash Baghat, Santosh Manhas, Badrinath Sharma, Varun Mangotra, Anuradha Sharma, Chander Prabha Sharma, and Vijay Sargotra had rejoined the Congress party.
"It was an emotional but totally wrong decision to leave Congress to show loyalist towards Ghulam Nabi Azad with who we have relations for a long", Tara Chand had stated, adding, "Within days after leaving Congress, we realized our mistake and decided to rejoin the party"
"We realized that our decision to resign from the Congress in support of Azad was a blunder,", he further added.
Azad floated a new political party on September 26, 2022
Notably, on September 26, Ghulam Nabi Azad launched a new political party under the name "Democratic Azad Party" in Jammu. He also unveiled the flag of the new party.
Flanked by Tara Chand, and ex-minister Ghulam Mohammad Saroori, former leader of opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad launched the new party today. Ghulam Nabi Azad snapped his 50-year-long relations with Congress Party on August 26, 2022, terming the party "comprehensively destroyed". He also lashed out at Rahul Gandhi for "demolishing" the party's entire consultative mechanism.
